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Monday, September 30, 2013

Final MoFo - Five Faves!

This post was supposed to go up last Friday, but I broke up with the internet for a few days so here it goes today instead. The idea for this post was stolen entirely from Jojo's Five Fave's post, and then I saw that Mandee and Sal joined in as well, so as the good copycat that I am I decided to do a Five Fave post with my top five vegan ingredients. It was not easy to choose five, and a few of my essentials are missing here: broccoli, lentils, chickpea flour, and chocolate. Chocolate! But I figured that probably 99% of my blogposts contain some sort of chocolate so you probably already figured I'm a big fan of the stuff.

1) Nutritional Yeast. Of course! I have a big container in the fridge that I use for recipes that call for lots of nooch, and I also keep a small jar for easy access for those times when I just want to sprinkle a bit on some pasta or soup or whatnot. Hell yea, B12!

2) Peanut Butter. OK, the picture shows peanuts and peanut butter, but that's because I never buy the stuff pre-made. I learned how to make peanut butter a couple of years ago and now make my own once a week or two. Ingredients: peanuts!

3) Coconut Milk. I use coconut milk to make ice cream, curries, frostings, truffles, and even cheese! I cannot imagine my life without it. If Cleopatra had known about the smooth lusciousness of coconut milk, she would have been bathing in it instead of, you know, yuck.

4) Cashews. Because they are magical nuts that can turn any sauce into a creamy loveliness. Soak them for a couple of hours, blend them with some sort of milk and voilà, la crème!

5) Flax seeds. I eat lots of flax seeds. They make excellent crackers, they work as an egg replacer, and they come in two handy colors to suit your baking needs! Also, without losing my ladylike decorum, let's just say that flax seeds help keep things moving, if you know what I'm saying. No? They help eliminate excess baggage, if you catch my drift. No? OK, they help you poop.

Now it's time to say goodbye to Vegan MoFo until next year. A massive thank you to everyone who stopped by to chat or to simply read my posts, and thank you to everyone who participated for all the inspiration and endless recipe bookmarks! As a token of my appreciation, here is a picture of Curly doing... some sort of duck activity...

I have loved reading your posts. :) Nutritional yeast and peanut butter are definitely two things I could not live without. Coconut milk on the other hand... I have a tricky relationship to coconut (love the flavour, but too much coconut fat makes me feel super icky).

1. Nutritional yeast - I wish I can find some here in Buenos Aires to make my usual mac & cheese, unfortunately the ingredients are pretty limited to find here. I guess I will wait until I head home to Oregon in November. I haven't had nutritional yeast for two months now (I was traveling in Spain last month and now in Argentina) ... talk about addiction!

2. Peanut Butter - speaking of peanut butter, I miss the cookie butter at Trader's Joe, it's so good and so addicting. I have two jars of them in my pantry back home, and they are waiting for me to dig in. I've got to check out your link to make a homemade peanut butter!

3. Coconut milk - I find coconut milk products in the U.S. a bit watery. I love the rich types in these little cartons you find at the Asian supermarkets, these are the little lifesavers to real coconut or coconut-based dishes!

4. Cashews - Still have a jar of these raw cashews waiting for me back home. I checked out couple of health food shops in Buenos Aires - I don't even know if they are raw at all. I would love to make some raw cashew milk or sauce, but the kitchen doesn't have any appliances such as a high-speed blender or processor. Sad right?

5. Flax seeds - Oh my, I've been into these ingredients lately after making these yummy nanaimo bars I made from the Ms. Cupcake cookbook. These are perfect egg replacers, and by far amazing.

A worthy list that will serve you well. My list would have almonds instead of peanuts, though, and chia instead of flax. So, I hope this doesn't mean you'll be disappearing again for another year. You will make an appearance now and then, right?